The journalist walked into Treeline during the morning rush and ordered an oat milk cortado like she'd been practicing.
Not Helen's oat milk cortado — a version of it, ordered with the self-conscious precision of a woman who'd done research before arriving. She was mid-thirties, sharp haircut, the kind of bag that holds a recorder and a notebook and the organized chaos of a person who writes for a living. She drank the cortado at the window bar with her laptop open and her eyes on me in a way I recognized because I'd been watched by professionals before — Jensen on Platform Three, Elena in a Conifer kitchen, Mares at the corner table. Except this woman's watching wasn't predatory. It was curious. The watching of a woman who'd read a public filing and wanted to know the person behind it.
She came to the counter after the rush cleared.
"Lark Bridger?"
"My name's on the window."
